Oblivion horrible fps

[Izaran]

Okay, this has been bugging me for a a few weeks now. I recently frankensteined a desktop outta recycled parts given to me from my former desktop (AMD mobo's Southbridge fried), some parts off Newegg and eBay, and a mobo/cpu I got from my A+ Certs instructor. Specs are...

Intel D915GUX Motherboard taken from an old Gateway E4300
Pentium 4 Prescott 3M (LGA775, Hyperthreading) 3.2Ghz
3GB PNY DDR2 533Mhz RAM
Windows 7 Ultimate (32-bit)
And the crown jewel...so to speak...
BFG Tech Nvidia GeForce 8500GT 1GB (completely overclocked)

Now I try to fire up Oblivion vanilla, and on lowest settings...everything down to resolution, I get...

15FPS
On highest
11FPS

It's IRRITATING (all caps rage intended)

My crummy Toshiba gets better performance!
Toshiba:

Core 2 Duo 2.0Ghz (T6400, Penryn)
GM45 NB (Rev 7)
4GB DDR2 400Mhz RAM
Intel 4 Series Express Chipset Family

I can get near 30FPS indoors on my laptop.
I cant even get 20 on my desktop...

And I know from the numerous reviews I have peaked into, that a P4, 3GB of RAM, and a crappy 8500GT can RUN OBLIVION quite fine.
So what is holding my desktop back? Did I mention I completely overclocked the GPU?
I can run MW2 at Medium and get smooth gameplay just to provide a benchmark.
I have tweaked shadows, distant land, buildings, trees, grass, specular, bloom, HDR, you name it I have moved it up or down. Nothing changes. It is as if it is locked in FPSHell.

 

[Izaran]

Oh I should note, Vsync is off...if anyone suggest vsync is capping my FPS limits

 

[Ananan]

My 7800 GT choked on Oblivion.

 

[Izaran]

My 7800 GT choked on Oblivion.

I understand that, but what has me lost is why my laptop which contains the worst integrated graphics since the G945 runs it better...Everything I put on my desktop except Oblivion outperforms anything this laptop can do (desktop is not yet Internet ready...need wireless card)

 

[Ananan]

How exactly did you determine that an 8500 GT would run Oblivion fine?

 

[Eldd]

"As casual gamer this card will deliver playable frame rates up to resolutions of 1280x1024, especially when you are willing to sacrifice some details in-game."

And this is one of the more favorable statements about the 8500 GT. Not even at the reviews dates for this card, in 2007, there weren't many positive opinions about the card's gaming capabilities. And Oblivion, even turned down, can be quite heavy for that card.

After all the 8500 GT is only a minor improvement on the 7xxx series, so not much space there. What is the resolution you're trying to run the game at on your system?

 

[Ananan]

Minor improvement?
If you believe Tom's charts the 8500 GT is

SIX

levels below th 7800 GT.

I didn't think it was that bad until I checked.

 

[Eldd]

Minor improvement?
If you believe Tom's charts the 8500 GT is

SIX

levels below th 7800 GT.

I didn't think it was that bad until I checked.

As a matter of fact, I didn't read Tom's review on that card, I had some other source, which mentioned a 10% improvement over the 7xxx series, but... oh well, then. Even worse.

And I do remember when I used a 8600 GT for gaming on the laptop, that I've read somewhere that one should've stayed away from buying "uneven"-numbered Nvidia GPU's, like the 8500.

 

[Izaran]

I have tried every resolution between 640x480 to my monitor native of 1280x1080

I still get less than 15fps.

I base my performance index off of several video's on YouTube, and advisories within the Oblivion modding community.

I absolutely intend to upgrade to AT LEAST a 9 Series sometime soon, but budget is an issue right now.

I did frankenkludge my computer outta scrap parts after all.

 

[Izaran]

Well I fixed the issue. Turns out I was overstepping the limits of my GPU, I went into the Forceware application and tuned some of the heavier stuff down for Oblivion...especially the prerendered frames.